MP requires protection after escalation in death threats, but abuse continues

Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman now requires a security escort after an escalation in threats being made against her.

She has attracted a lot of attention in social media, and some of it from bad to despicable. I get it that some people don’t like some of what she champions and proposes, but there is no excuse for the levels of abuse she has been subjected to.

Even after the police protection was publicised there were people on Twitter blaming her for attracting abuse, and making excuses for abuse.

Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman will have a security escort with her whenever she leaves Parliament after her security risk was escalated by police.

Ms Ghahraman said it came after a Newshub story about white supremacy revealed she was being talked about in a dangerous manner.

Her safety was put at further risk after comments made by the ACT leader David Seymour that she was a “real menace to freedom in this country”, she said.

“As you can imagine, it’s distressing to have secret white supremacist groups talking about you and to have that escalated to the level of the mainstream and I think it kind of gives us all a feeling of how those targeted communities feel.”

However, Mr Seymour disputed her safety was put at risk by his comments.

“She’s someone who gives back as good, if not a lot more, than she gets in political debate.”

Seymour has got himself into a precarious situation with this. He has helped feed to abusers and conspiracy theorists.

But he said nobody in this country deserved to be threatened with violence and no MP should have to shrink from political debate because some people were thugs and bullies.

He should take a good look at the rhetoric and escalating abuse that he has become a part of.

Seymour’s words about @golrizghahraman resonated with a conspiracy theory that’s been growing amongst conservative Pakeha since March the 15th. Visitors to the popular facebook page of former Act adman John Ansell can see the conspiracy in full bloom. Ansell & co believe that a slow moving coup d’etat began on March the 15th.

As bizarre as it sounds, they consider the atrocities of that day a ‘false flag operation’, designed to legitimise the elimination of democracy by Ardern’s ‘communist’ government. Ansell & co think they’re targets.

When Seymour called @golrizghahraman a menace to freedom, b/c she has been advocating law changes after March the 15th, his words were treated by Ansell & his fellow paranoics as further evidence of a coup d’etat & coming civil war. Seymour’s feeding some worrying delusions

Just to build on the conspiracy angle I see there’s a theory going around that Golriz’s need for security is being faked / overstated and is being driven by the “left-wing media” and our “communist government”

If anyone tries any of that sort of ‘speculation’ or conspiracy mongering here without any evidence to back up what they claim they will find they are not welcome here.

Since 15 March there has been a noticeable lift in abuse and making excuses for abuse.

Ghahraman has brought some criticism on herself with some of what she has claimed and proposed, but that is no reason to excuse an escalation in abuse. This is a worrying in New Zealand politics.

14 Comments

oldlaker

I really don’t see how Seymour’s claim that Ghahraman is a threat to freedoms makes him responsible for what paranoiacs and conspiracy theorists say. She wants to restrict what we can say and he sees that as a threat to the freedoms we currently enjoy. He deplores the use of threats and has said publicly that no one should be subjected to them.
It is just as likely that Patrick Gower’s expose of white supremacy inflamed or emboldened those making threats. Does that mean all public discussion should halt about the possible causes of March 15?

Kitty Catkin

His comments are being inflated out of all proportion and having all sorts of meanings put into them that they don’t have,

Calling someone a menace is hardly inciting violence or abuse, unless one is a professional victime like Golriz Ghahraman..

Let’s not forget that GG is a proven liar and an attention seeking egotist who even shamefully exploited the massacre to publicise herself.

This is someone who claimed to be a Minister, claimed to have been a prosecutor with the UN but not known anything about the man whom she, in fact, helped to defend on genocide charges, changes her mind about whether or not she was a refugee as it suits her. It seems that she did not, in fact, spend her childhood in the war zone, but in somewhere away from it.

Patzcuaro

It looks like others have washed their hands of the consequences of their actions before you.

“He is known for adjudicating on the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. … He thus seeks to avoid personal responsibility for the death of Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew, Pilate washes his hands to show that he is not responsible for the execution of Jesus and reluctantly sends him to his death.”

Alan Wilkinson

The Consultant

Self-fulfilling prophecies everywhere. After all, what Green Party member does not want to see ACT further demonised than they already have been over the last twenty years – and destroyed?

One could say that many on the Right wish the same thing for the Greens. The difference is that judging by polls and Paliamentary seats, the Greens are winning and ACT are losing.

It’s also a good example – refer Venezuela 2002, Germany 1932, Russia 1917, Serajevo 1993 – of how foolish it can be to talk about how it can’t happen here. March 15 was just one example and you’d think people would learn.

The eternal problem is that even when you have a bolthole, when do you use it? I must admit that question exercises me more each day in NZ.

Duker

Kitty Catkin

If you mean Heather Roy’s claims, that didn’t happen. Rodney is not at all hubristic and not a bully; anything but. I don’t know you think he bullied, but it never happened. Heather’s spite was for reasons of her own and who knows why she said those things.

Rodney is appalled by men hitting women and to be accused of this would be about the most wounding thing that could happen.

“Initially, the Green Party said Ghahraman was to get a police escort, but the MP clarified that she will be accompanied by a Parliamentary Service security officer.” So not the Police and only around Parliament? That’s quite a difference. https://t.co/rGcy6lSMzY